10 Tips for a Headache-Free Workout

Forget the boot camps, extreme workouts, ultra-marathons, and crash diets. People who get exercise headaches have to take a different approach. Here are 10 tips to avoid exercise headache.

Listen

Listen to your body. If you are an exercise veteran, you probably can sense when an exercise headache is coming on. You may start to feel hot, look flushed, or sense twinges in your head. If this happens, ramp it down (don’t stop abruptly). If these symptoms subside, keep going but at a slower pace. If the symptoms do not completely go away or persist, then cool down and call it a day. If you sense an exercise headache coming on, resist the urge to “power through it.” You can’t. By the way, if you have to terminate a workout early because you sense a headache coming on, drink plenty of water—about one glass every 30 minutes, for the next few hours. This “home remedy” sometimes works to abort vascular headaches. Do not drink anything other than plain water and drink as much as you reasonably can without forcing it down.